Cambridge Essays on Education eBook

The largest of those problems, viz., how to provide
elementary instruction for the whole population, is
far less urgent now than it was fifty years ago.
The Act of 1870, followed by the Act which made school-attendance
compulsory, has done its work. What is wanted
now is Quality rather than Quantity. Quantity
is doubtless needed in one respect. Children
ought to stay longer at school and ought to have more
encouragement to continue education after they leave
the elementary school. But it is chiefly an improvement
in the teaching that is wanted, and that of course
means the securing of higher competence in the teacher
by raising the remuneration and the status of the
teaching profession[1].

The next problem is how to find the finest minds among
the children of the country and bring them by adequate
training to the highest efficiency. The sifting
out of these best minds is a matter of educational
organisation and machinery; and the process will become
the easier when the elementary teachers, who ought
to bear a part in selecting those who are most fitted
to be sent on to secondary schools, have themselves
become better qualified for the task of discrimination.
The question how to train these best minds when sifted
out would lead me into the tangled controversy as to
the respective educational values of various subjects
of instruction, a topic which I must not deal with
here. What I do wish to dwell upon is the supreme
importance to the progress of a nation of the best
talent it possesses. In every country there is
a certain percentage of the population who are fitted
by their superior intelligence, industry, and force
of character to be the leaders in every branch of action
and thought. It is a small percentage, but it
may be increased by discovering ability in places
where the conditions do not favour its development,
and setting it where it will have a better chance of
growth, just as a seedling tree brought out of the
dry shade may shoot up when planted where sun and
rain can reach it freely. I am not thinking of
those exceptionally great and powerful minds, of whom
there may not be more than four or five in a generation,
who make brilliant discoveries or change the currents
of thought, but rather of persons of a capacity high,
if not quite first rate, which enables them, granted
fair chances, to rise quickly into positions where
they can effectively serve the community. These
men, whatever occupation they follow, be it that of
abstract thinking, or literary production, or scientific
research, or the conduct of affairs, whether commercial
or political or administrative, are the dynamic strength
of the country when they enter manhood, and its realised
wealth when they are in their fullest vigour thirty
years later. We need more of them, and more of
them may be found by taking pains.